


this mess was yours (now your mess is mine).

by maledictus



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Multi, PTSD, Post CA:CW, background ships, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 02:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maledictus/pseuds/maledictus
Summary: Steve Rogers loves the mess that is James Buchanan Barnes, but worries he's forgotten all that they used to be. James Buchanan Barnes remembers all that they used to be, but worries that Steve Rogers won't love the mess he's become.Featuring: Vision's certified Mind Stone Therapy; Bucky with emotional constipation so deep he hasn't taken a shit in fifty years; supportive best friends Sam Wilson and Sharon Carter; Natasha Romanov, the original cockblock; actual angel Wanda Maximoff; Tony Stark being a rich and bitter orphaned asshole who gets custom made blow-up dolls of his coworkers; and therapy animals.





	1. it's been six months and i still keep a gun in my underwear.

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the first part of this actual train wreck of a fic that is going for noir rom-com.  
> slightly au because i love the arc reactor but i also love parent murder.  
> idk how many chapters. it ends when i stop having fun.

It's dark. It's dark, and there's a cacophony of noises all around him: tortured screams, the raucous staccato of gunfire, strangled pleas for mercy from victims he can't see. He feels his muscles tense, rolling and snapping under taut skin that stinks of fear. There's a wolf circling him, massive and darker than black, with grinning iron jaws trapped behind a black kevlar muzzle and blank white eyes piercing right into his soul, the very essence of what makes him _him_.

_But who is he?_

"James, can you hear me?"

The voice is brisk, clean-cut and warm and distinctly British; it's not the voice he expects to hear. He feels himself nodding: _yes, I can hear you. But who the hell is James?_ There's a flash of red and a burst of gold, white-hot and furious as it relentlessly cuts through the miasma enveloping his trembling psyche. It burns like the cold of fifty years of cryo containment, like the fires of a thousand explosions, like the venomous kiss of a woman with hair as red as blood; it chases back the wolf waiting in the shadows. He feels his jaw stretch and pop as he opens his mouth to scream.

He screams, and he screams, and he screams.

_Will it ever stop?_

"That's enough!"

There's the voice he's been expecting: sharp and searing and commanding, cleaving through the madness of his mind like a hot knife through butter. And just like that, he's back in the Avengers compound, shoulders trembling, mismatched hands clutching his thighs hard enough to bruise, chest heaving against a sweat-soaked shirt one size too small for him.

Bucky struggles for breath for a few moments, then leans over the side of the chair and vomits into a waiting trash can.

There are hands on him, cool and gentle and reassuring: Wanda brushes the back of his hand with delicate fingertips, sympathetic eyes searching his face for any sign of unnecessary trauma; Vision's impossibly strong touch threads through his tangled hair with surprising deftness, holding it out of his face while he purges the morning's bacon and eggs out of his system; and the large, calloused hands rubbing the tension from his back and shoulders could only belong to Steve.

"There's gotta be an easier way to do this," Steve says in a hoarse voice. Bucky wonders if these little sessions are getting to his friend as much as they're getting to him.

Vision makes a noncommittal noise in his throat and shakes his head. "I'm afraid there isn't, Captain Rogers. He is not responding to conventional therapy, and this more direct approach seems to have some effect."

Bucky can practically hear the scowl on Steve's face. He knows how helpless Steve feels, seeing his best friend struggle and cry out against invisible assailants and knowing there's nothing he can do; he also knows that Steve Rogers hates feeling helpless, that it's a feeling he hasn't felt in over seventy years, that it's a feeling he doesn't miss. There's a lot that Bucky can't remember, but he does remember the mute chagrin on Steve's face each time he had to haul his battered ninety pound frame out of an overflowing sewer drain.

_'I had 'em on the ropes, Buck.'_

_'Sure you did, you little punk.'_

_Steve's a good man_ , he thinks idly, keeping his head low to stave off the dizziness his sessions usually bring on. _He deserves better._

"I don't think I'm worth all this," he quietly admits in a scream-harsh voice once Steve has helped him out of the chair and back to his private quarters.

Steve clicks his tongue against his teeth, those perfect teeth that Tony wants to punch right out of his mouth as though he's the first man who's had that sentiment, and waves away his words. "Don't be stupid, Buck. We're gonna burn every last remnant of HYDRA from that head of yours, even if it's the last thing I do."

"It just might be," Bucky retorts with ominous softness, an eerie light in his dull blue eyes. Steve is unfazed, meeting that once familiar blue gaze with tranquil patience; the hand on the side of Bucky's neck is warm and grounding, even as it seeks out his pulse to calculate his level of stress.

"Stow it, jerk. Now get in the tub: you reek." The way he says it is affectionately teasing, oddly familiar, and Bucky can feel his lips twitching upwards into a small smile.

* * *

_"Get in the tub: you reek."_

_Steve's bony fingers have a vice grip on his wrist; he's making a beeline to the bathroom, and before Bucky can protest, Steve's started the water running and is working apart the buttons of his shirt._

_"Save the water, Stevie; you ain't smellin' so pretty yourself."_

_"You haven't bathed in a week, Buck: if you think I'm sleepin' next to you when you smell like all of Hooverville put together, you're dead wrong."_

_Bucky grins. As he undresses him and forces him to sit down in the lukewarm water, Steve prattles on about the new holes in their motheaten sheets and the spilled coffee on his latest sketch and the persistent ache in his lungs that might herald pneumonia — but when he looks into his friend's face, Bucky sees nothing but hope and love and slight disgust at the fact that he's become a human ashtray._

_"I'm sorry, Stevie." And he means it: he's sorry that he's nothing but sweat and cigarette smoke and cinder smudges; he's sorry he can't afford any new sheets; he's sorry he tipped the coffee pot over in his haste not to be late to work; and he's sorry that he can't keep Steve warm enough at night to force his pathetic excuses for lungs to work properly. Steve doesn't say anything; he just reaches down to thread his fingers with Bucky's, squeezing his hand tightly and giving him that stupid lopsided smile that drew Bucky to him in the first place._

_"It's okay, you big jerk. Now shove over — no reason we can't share. I know I don't smell like roses, either."_

_Steve shrugs out of his clothes (Bucky's clothes, three sizes too big for his skinny frame), and Bucky kisses him._

* * *

That night, Bucky can't sleep. He wanders around the compound, eyes wide and ears pricked to every creak and groan and sigh of breath from his new teammates. He drifts past Vision, hovering inoperative in the common room; the mind stone pulses in his forehead, but the android doesn't stir as the cyborg creeps past him. He pads silently from room to room as though he might find some sleep inside one of them: Wanda is curled into a tiny ball in the corner of her bed, her back clearly used to being molded against someone's chest; Tony sleeps like a restless toddler — tossing and turning, arms akimbo, the soft glow from the circle of light in his chest casting shadows about the room; Clint has unconsciously drawn all the pillows on his bed into his arms, hugging a woman he imagines in his dreams; Thor snores like nobody's business, and Bucky quickly leaves his room to avoid seeing any more of his naked body. Natasha's door is locked — probably for the best.

Steve's bed is empty, sheets tucked in with military precision.

Before he can wonder where his friend has wandered off to, he smells coffee. _Steve is so predictable,_ he thinks with grim realization. Bucky makes his way to the kitchen with breathtaking silence, peering around the corner to find his friend standing at the counter in the dark, his silhouette backlit by the dim glow from the coffee maker.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Steve doesn't turn around as he says it; Bucky knows his keen ears picked up on his movements. He also knows he doesn't have to reply; Steve just _knows_. So Bucky doesn't reply — instead, he goes for something completely inane but darkly true, hoping he sounds like the Bucky Barnes that fell from the train, hoping that for just a moment, he doesn't have to feel like a ghost haunting his own skin.

"It's been six months; six months, Steve, and I still keep a gun in my underwear."

The blond gives a halting laugh that says _he might understand_ and turns, holding out one of the two steaming mugs in his hands. Bucky takes it and drinks, and is once again amazed that Steve remembers exactly how he likes his coffee. _I wonder what else he remembers,_ he thinks with muted interest, keeping his gaze on the blackness in the mug in his hands. _Does he remember that day, too? That memory from before? Why else would he have said those exact words?_

_And even if he remembers, would he still want me?_

Steve reaches out to rest his free hand on Bucky's shoulder, pointedly ignoring the angry swell of skin where metal meets man. "C'mon, pal: let's watch a movie. The sun'll be up in a few hours."

Bucky puts aside his doubt and nods, because any time spent with Steve is time well spent.


	2. you remember, and remembering's half the battle.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring: breakfast. old memories and new faces. sam's horrible attempts to be a good friend. bucky with a very, very foul mouth.

The alarm clock rings, and Bucky slams his metal fist down onto it. It shatters. He doesn't care; Stark's a fucking billionaire — he can afford to replace another alarm clock. Besides, he'd much prefer to be woken by something, anything, other than a shrill mechanical beeping that throws him into battle mode right out of bed.

Like _Steve_.

With that horrendously wonderful thought in his head, he groans and scrubs his mismatched hands over his eyes and back into his tangled hair. He throws back the sheets and pulls on a pair of muted gray sweatpants and an oversized black hoodie; he doesn't bother making the bed (beds are for sleeping and fucking in, not for looking nice) before drifting out of his room and through the compound, following the smell of coffee and the muffled sounds of voices coming from the kitchen.

He's surprised to see that the entire team is awake and making breakfast; he's even more surprised to see that they have a guest. His gaze seeks out his best friend and finds him seated at the head of the table, phthalo eyes skimming idly over the day's paper, still old fashioned in spite of Tony's insistence that he get the news from the internet. To his left is Sam, eating his way through a short stack of pancakes and trying to talk to Steve with his mouth full; to his right is Sharon, dutifully on her phone as she nurses a hot mug of something that's definitely more cream than coffee. At the other head of the table is Tony, clearly on his third cup of coffee — his fingers tremble as they rapidly tinker with a new gadget, probably some sort of insidious sexual device that goes in someone's ass or something. Bruce is watching intently from Tony's left, brows furrowed in concentration, a plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs and burnt toast forgotten on the table; Thor also seems intrigued with Tony's newfangled toy, though he is actively wolfing down a plate of eggs and bacon and pop tarts while he watches. Okay, maybe it's not a sex toy.

In the kitchen, Clint and Vision are watching the remaining two ladies at the stove, the hawk from atop the fridge like the complete lunatic he is and the android from his usual place just over Wanda's shoulder. She's talking in a hushed voice with Natasha, and there's something in the pot they're stirring that smells achingly familiar.

Bucky feels immensely out of place with this big, somewhat cohesive family of strangers, but he approaches anyway, moving to stand behind the most familiar form in the room; Steve doesn't say anything, only reaches out to rest a hand on his friend's forearm.

"So, am I the bitch, or are you?" Sam asks, gesturing to the blocky text printed on the front of Bucky's hoodie.

"Go fuck yourself, Wilson."

Sam flicks a forkful of pancake at him, and Steve starts to laugh, and Bucky feels the beginnings of a smile tug at the corners of his chapped lips. He pretends to ignore them, turning his head in the direction of the kitchen and idly watching the steam rise from the bubbling pot on the stove. The back of his neck prickles, and he lifts his gaze to see that Natasha is staring right at him. His mouth goes dry, and he immediately returns his gaze to the pot. The Black Widow still makes him uncomfortable.

"...is that kasha?" He feels his lips form the words, but doesn't recognize the thin voice that comes out of him. She smiles, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes, and his heart spasms in his chest.

"It is. How did you know?"

_Because you used to make it for me._ He can't say the words out loud, can't admit that he remembers everything she'd ever done for him; to admit that he remembers the Black Widow would be admitting that he's still the Winter Soldier. And he is still the Winter Soldier, with dark watchful eyes and windswept hair and two day old stubble and a gun in his hands and a finger on the trigger, though he's not the force that pulls it — and that only makes remembering harder, harder to do and harder to admit to. There are countries that might not have fallen, governments that would still have their visionaries, families that would still have their fathers and mothers, were it not for his disparate hands...or hers.

_Does she still try to forget, like I do?_

_That's too much shit to ponder at breakfast time._

He shrugs, a barely-there rise and fall of his shoulders.

"I just do."

The look she gives him tells him more than words ever could.

* * *

"You remember Nat, don't you?"

The look Steve is giving him makes him feel like a boy again, being teased in the schoolyard about offering ditchwater flowers to a pretty little thing with a cherubic face and bouncing blonde curls. He scoffs, doesn't meet his friend's expectant blue gaze.

"Of course I do, Steve: she choked me with her goddamn legs. Twice."

"S'not what I meant, Barnes, and you know it."

He doesn't say anything. He hates when Steve is right. He also hates when Steve gives him that lopsided smile that says he _knows_ he's right. Bucky ignores him, staring out the window at the trees swaying slowly back and forth in the wind. He sees his reflection in the glass; he almost doesn't recognize it.

"We turned tricks together in the Red Room. So what?"

"But you remember." Steve's voice is low and confident, leaving no room for Bucky to argue further. And why would he want to? Steve sounds _pleased._ "You remember, and that's half the battle, Buck."

There's a hand resting on his shoulder, the flesh and blood one. Bucky glances down at it, shifts to regard Steve with an expression of silent ire. Steve meets his gaze evenly, patiently, as though daring his friend to refute him. 

Silence.

The hand remains on his shoulder. It's so goddamn familiar, so grounding, like Steve's bony fingers on his bicep as he shoves Bucky away and wipes his bloody nose on his sleeve. Steve was always strong, strong and stubborn and unyielding even in the face of total chaos; and there's total chaos in Bucky's head, and still, Steve stares it down with unmatched determination to conquer. And when Steve stares him down, the turgid waters of his mind seem to still.

Bucky gives a single, wordless nod. He'll admit it to Steve and nobody else.

The hand on his shoulder squeezes, then disappears, along with the rest of his friend. Bucky lets out the breath he's been holding and rests his forehead against the welcoming coolness of the windowpane.

* * *

'Go out with Sam,' Steve said. 'It'll be fun,' Steve said. 'You have to get out of the house; you're starting to grow mold sittin' on your ass in the dark all the time', Steve said.

_Yeah, pawn me off on Wilson. That'll be a fucking trip._

The bar is loud, but their private booth (courtesy of one very reluctant Tony Stark) is quiet. Over the lip of his glass, Sam watches him with a spark of mischief in his eyes. "So, who're you more into: Tasha or Rogers?"

Bucky chokes on his mouthful of beer. He swallows the urge to punch Sam in the throat.

_Why the fuck couldn't I just go out with Steve?_

_Right. Because he's going out with Sharon._

Bucky ignores the pang of jealousy that throttles his heart. He channels all his rage at his combined misfortunes into one very livid look he shoots in Sam's direction, and he puts up his hands in surrender. If looks could kill, Bucky is very sure that Sam would be bleeding out all over the booth.

"Easy, man: just a little question. Jeez, you're really makin' me work to be your friend."

Bucky ignores him, just like he's ignored most things today. He downs half his glass of pilsener in one drink, then decides to humor his friend — after all, Sam is, much to his own chagrin, his friend.

"...yes."

"Aw, c'mon, J — that ain't an answer." Sam presses, but he smiles all the same, clearly pleased that the wraith haunting the other side of the booth has decided to acknowledge him. 

Bucky decides to play it safe. "Natasha, then."

"Is that your final answer?" Sam feigns nonchalance as he takes another drink; his eyebrows are positively making love to his forehead. Bucky wants to throw his entire beer in Sam's face and use the broken glass to shave off those offending eyebrows, but he also wants to break down and tell him the truth. Sam clearly knows, has clearly been paying attention to his discomfort and aggravation at the lack of Steve at the booth tonight. And besides, what else are friends for, if not for confiding your deepest, darkest, most homosexual feelings to?

"...fine. Steve."

"Oh man, I knew it!" Sam enthusiastically yells the obvious, and Bucky cringes, biting back the urge to cram his glass down his throat and shut him up. "I knew you were into Cap," he continues in a tone only somewhat softer than his stadium voice. Bucky is heartily regretting his decision. "How long? Who else knows? Does Tony know? Oh, man, you'd better pray that Tony doesn't know—"

"Shut the fuck up, Wilson."

Surprisingly, Sam obliges, looking like a gossip girl as he hunkers down and stares at Bucky with expectant brown eyes. _What, does this fucker fancy himself a matchmaker?_

Bucky sighs.

"It's-...it's not all there. It comes in fits and bursts, like-...like splashes of different paint on the same canvas. I know I loved him before-...before the war. Before HYDRA. And he loved me too. But I don't-...I don't remember everything. I just know I still love him." His shoulders sag — it feels good to get this weight off of them. Sam is listening intently, having gone from the look of an excited schoolgirl to one of deep contemplation, like a man helping his best friend with a complicated relationship. And maybe the 'best' part isn't true, but the rest of it sure as hell is.

"And nobody else knows. You're the first I've told. And if you say anything, I'll staple your dick to your gut so every time you take a piss, it goes right up your goddamn fucking shirt." He could go on about how he'd make him eat the stapler and then sew his lips shut around it, but Sam interrupts him.

"Easy, sergeant: your secret's safe with me. But riddle me this — if you still love him, why the hell aren't you with him? Color me confused, but it seems to me that Cap's been making bedroom eyes at you for awhile now, ever since you got your memory back. Well, mostly back. Halfway back. Is it back?"

Bucky shoots him a look that would murder a lesser man.

"It's a path I'm traveling down, and it has a lot of offshoots. And Steve wouldn't want-...this. This mess I've become, this pile of absolute shit that HYDRA left behind. Besides, he's got _Sharon_ now." He tries not to sound bitter; he fails. He bites out her name like it's offended God and man, like it's the tuberculosis that killed Steve's mother, like it's the barrel of the shotgun his own father choked on. Sharon's a plenty nice dame, but that day she kissed Steve in front of him was the day that he apologized to Peggy Carter for wanting to snipe her niece. One day, he's going to follow through. He'll still leave flowers on her grave, though — Sharon's a plenty nice dame, and she'll be nicer when she's dead.

Sam's wind-burnt lips twist into a sad smile. "Oh, you poor bastard. How little you know."

He goes silent after that, and Bucky orders them another round.


End file.
